God save the prez

No thanks, Charles. We’d like Pratibha Patil, our head of State, to inaugurate the Commowealth Games. What we don’t like is the manner in which she is trying to foist Prince Charles of the Ears Gone By upon us as her representative.

No thanks, Charles. We’d like Pratibha Patil, our head of State, to inaugurate the Commowealth Games.

Well, we can put away all the silver. Queen Liz has decided to give the Commonwealth Games a skip as she is otherwise engaged. We are not amused. Not because we’re either going to miss her presence or her husband’s unique brand of humour. What we don’t like is the manner in which she is trying to foist Prince Charles of the Ears Gone By upon us as her representative.

Now, we have nothing against Bonnie Prince Charlie. We quite admire his propensity to jabber to plants, to so love and cherish the equine Camilla and his views on architecture. But since he is not the head of the Commonwealth, we see no reason to kit ourselves out in our Sunday best and strike up ‘God save the queen’ for him. Since we, the taxpayers, are shelling out for the Games, we would much rather have a personage of our choice as the presiding deity. And who better than our own Head of State Pratibha Patil? After all, she is knocking about in a home that would make Buckingham Palace look like the caretaker’s outhouse. And she is, after all, the top show as the host. Sartorially, both the ladies are not all that far apart. If Liz looks like she stopped updating her clothes in the 50s, our lady clearly believes that more is more in her threads that really defy all description.

And if you thought that President Patil is not the outdoorsy sort, you clearly have not seen her all togged up for a spin in a fighter aircraft. The Queen, we gather, is fond of hunting and hawking. Let’s see her better us at hawking, or spitting for that matter. So let’s kiss goodbye to all this colonial kissing of nether anatomies. Let the Queen move over, it’s our time to lord it over the show.